The resolution, the latest skirmish in the GOP’s ongoing internal ideological battle, would require candidates to meet a purity test on fiscal and social issues or risk being denied direct and coordinated spending from the national committee.

But numerous top party officials say that imposing such a conservative litmus test would only spur intra-party bickering at a time when Republicans are poised to make significant gains in next year’s mid-term elections.

“We’re becoming a church that would rather chase away heretics than welcome converts and that’s no way to become a majority party,” complained former Rep. Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican who served as National Republican Congressional Committee chairman. “This makes no sense for those of us who are interested in winning elections.”

Ticking off each of the 10 policy questions, Davis noted how many House Republicans would fail the various tests.

“It’s death by a thousand cuts,” he concluded.

While Davis hails from the moderate wing of the party, more conservative Republicans are also voicing unease over the proposal, designated “the Resolution on Reagan's Unity Principle for Support of Candidates”—a reference to the former president’s axiom that the person who was with him 80 percent of the time was his ally.

Asked if the resolution was a good idea, Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, the number two Senate Republican, said flatly: “No.”

“In the United States, we only have two major political parties,” Kyl continued. “In a lot of countries they have a lot of different parties so virtually every one in the party can agree with everybody else on everything. But when you get it down to 300 million people divided by two, you have a lot of range of attitudes and views. And I think it’s best for both the Democrat Party and the Republican Party to be big tents to accommodate a lot of different viewpoints.”

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a former NRCC Chair and party operative, said he was in concert with each of the 10 issues.

“But I really think it’s a solution looking for a problem,” Cole observed. The better approach, he said: “You need to trust local Republicans.”

"I prefer to let the grassroots decide these sort of things," he said, calling his view the "10th Amendment approach."

Rep. Peter King and former Rep. Tom Reynolds, both New York Republicans, noted that they’d also pass the test, proposed by Indiana national party committeeman James Bopp.Yet each said it could harm the GOP’s effort to retake the majority in Congress.

“I don’t think national committeemen putting purity tests on the party is wise,” said Reynolds, also a former NRCC chair. He called the move a recipe for “a perfect minority.”

When Republicans claimed the majority in 1994—and when Democrats took it back in 2006—they did so thanks to some members who diverged from party orthodoxy, Reynolds noted.

“You need to recruit the candidates that reflect the districts where there is an opportunity to win,” he argued. “So the candidate in the 1st District of Mississippi is going to look different than the one in the 23rd District of New York.”

“I think it’s dangerous to judge a candidacy just based on a questionnaire,” added King. “You have to look at the person.”

Citing the upstate New York special election last month where the moderate-liberal GOP nominee, faced with a surging Conservative Party challenger, dropped out of the race and endorsed the Democrat who ultimately won, King added: “I think it was a mistake to have [Dede] Scozzafava as a candidate – but I don’t think we should overreact to one candidacy.”

That loss in a historically Republican-held seat, combined with the high-profile candidacies of such pragmatists as Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who backed the stimulus package, has moved some Republicans to demand candidates who are more committed to core conservative principles.

But the effort has also exposed lingering divisions between those who think the path to victory can be found in hewing to the bedrock ideals the party strayed from in recent years and those who believe tolerating some apostasy is a prerequisite to reclaiming the majority.

Nowhere is this split more vividly rendered than in the battle between orthodox conservative activists such as Bopp and his supporters on the national committee and the party’s elected officials and senior operatives.

“They have a constituency within the party,” conceded Davis, referring to activists including Bopp.“But they probably couldn’t get elected dog-catcher.”

While noting that party loyalists often are well-intentioned, Reynolds said “they can be parochial in their thinking.”

Still, such activists often do much of the campaign grunt work every candidate and consultant depends on for victory. And they also typically reflect the mood of the party base, making some Republican leaders loathe to criticize them or their ideas for fear of turning off a critical constituency.

To this end, representatives from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the NRCC and the Republican Governors Association all declined to weigh in on the resolution or let their bosses discuss the matter. Spokespersons for potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates were similarly mum.

Aside from not wanting to offend a core of the party, though, GOP officials also privately think there is little chance such a proposal would pass in its current form when the RNC meets next month in Hawaii.

And many regular Republicans are annoyed at what they view as a waste of time and energy at a point when the party seems to be finding its footing in opposition to an increasingly unpopular Democratic White House.

“There is no doubt that most RNC members want to see the GOP promote our conservative credentials, but most members believe this resolution sends the wrong message,” said Henry Barbour, Mississippi’s national committeeman and a veteran party strategist.

“I strongly oppose this draft resolution and don’t think it can pass the committee. The Republican Party already has a platform and a chairman—we don’t need some secret group in Washington deciding who qualifies as a good Republican. We have primary voters for that. We need to continue to focus our efforts on providing conservative alternatives to the big-spending schemes coming out of the White House and Democrat controlled Congress. That’s enough to keep us busy.”

Senior Republicans are especially worried about what the proposal could mean for some of the party’s favored recruits next year, including moderate Delaware Rep. Mike Castle, who is running for the Senate seat previously held by Vice President Joe Biden.

“The idea that they’d pass a proposal that could hurt the party’s ability to win the VP’s Senate seat is insanity,” carped one top party operative.

Ed Gillespie, a former RNC Chairman, put it this way on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday: “As I look at it, what if you have a Republican who agrees with seven out of those 10 things running against a Democrat who agrees with zero out of those 10 things and you want to put some money into a race to try to win back the House and you’re constrained from doing that? I’m not sure that would be in the best interest of the party at the end of the day.”